


The Plottings of Miss Bell

by mairelon



Category: JONES Diana Wynne - Works, The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4704737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mairelon/pseuds/mairelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christopher sees Miss Bell staring at him at a train station.  Millie and Jason think she's after Christopher for revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Plottings of Miss Bell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [russian_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/gifts).



Christopher first saw the Last Governess again at Bowbridge Station as Oneir and Fenning's train pulled away. Though he had become reconciled to life at the castle, Christopher still felt a strong stab of resentment at Papa that they were returning to school and he wasn't.

Christopher’s scalp prickled with the eerie sensation of being watched. Keeping a vague look on his face, he looked away from the disappearing train and saw a familiar figure standing at the entrance of the station.

Miss Bell was wearing a drab brown coat and an enormous hat and she was staring straight at him. When she saw that Christopher had seen her, she nodded at him in greeting and slipped out the doors.

Christopher grabbed at Millie and Jason's arms. "Miss Bell!" he said. He took off across the station, dodging around a family with eight children and ten trunks and a man with four dogs on a leash. By the time he got outside, Miss Bell had disappeared. Christopher looked up and down the snow-covered streets but there was no sign of the Last Governess.

Jason and Millie came out and joined Christopher on the sidewalk.

"What's going on?" asked Jason.

"Did you really see Miss Bell?" asked Millie. Her teeth started chattering and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

"Yes!" exclaimed Christopher. "She was right here! She nodded at me and came outside."

"Miss Bell. Effisia Bell?" said Jason. "That Wraith gang member that got away?"

"We need to tell Gabriel right away," said Millie.

On the way back home in the pony trap with Jason driving, they speculated about what Miss Bell was up to. She had eluded capture for the last six months and now showed up at Bowbridge, just a few miles away from Chrestomanci Castle. Jason and Millie thought she was coming after Christopher to seek her revenge, but Christopher thought Miss Bell was not the vengeful type.

Gabriel was away when they got back home but Flavian listened to their story and sent a message to the police inspector in charge of the case.

* * *

A letter postmarked from London arrived for Christopher at breakfast two days later. Christopher recognized Miss Bell's handwriting on the envelope. He opened it to find a photograph of Oneir and Fenning sitting on wooden chairs and looking up at the camera. Fenning was in tears and Oneir looked stoic. The letter simply said:

_Christopher,_

_If you want to see your friends again, meet me on Tower Bridge in London alone this evening at 6:00._

There was no signature on the letter.

Christopher felt sick to his stomach. Neither Millie nor Jason had noticed. Millie was trying to eat her toast and finish packing her school trunk at the same time, while Jason was still half asleep and munching toast with his eyes closed.

Millie conjured up the duvet from her bed and stuffed it into her trunk. "The blankets they give us at school isn't warm enough," she said.

Christopher mutely handed her the letter. Millie read it and let out a particularly filthy curse she must have picked up at school. Jason's eyes snapped open. "What happened?"

Millie thrust the photograph and letter at him. "Look at that!" she demanded.

The letter and photograph got rather crumpled over the next hour as it was passed from hand to hand around the castle. Miss Rosalie immediately sent a telegram to Christopher's old boarding school to check if Oneir and Fenning were there. When the reply came that they had never arrived, Gabriel looked grimmer than ever.

Christopher and Millie were using every method of divination they knew to try to find Fenning, Oneir, or Miss Bell. Jason was helping Flavian use the photograph to trace Miss Bell. The lack of a signature on the letter made it worthless as a tracer but the photograph had possibilities. However, none of their methods could break through the wards Miss Bell had cast over herself and her hostages.

It was a rather dispirited group that gathered for lunch in the dining room.

"It doesn't look like we will find them in time," said Christopher. "I'll meet Miss Bell on the bridge and see what she wants."

"We'll go with you and hide nearby. When she shows up, we'll pounce on her," Millie said.

" _You_ aren't going anywhere," said Gabriel, who seemed to have just realized that Millie was still at the Castle. "You need to go back to school. Your train left two hours ago. Flavian can transport you to your school after lunch."

Christopher and Millie instantly set up a storm of protest over this.

"You can't send her away-"

"-need my help with this-"

"Exactly! I need Millie's help-"

"-not knowing what's happening-"

Gabriel eventually agreed to allow Millie to stay at the Castle for one more day though it was more because they needed to plan for the rendezvous than because of Millie and Christopher's arguments.

* * *

At a quarter to six that evening, Christopher was standing alone in the middle of Tower Bridge. The sun had set and the wrought-iron witchlight lamps cast yellow pools of light at regular intervals across the bridge. A pea souper was rising and there were few pedestrians or carriages on the bridge.

A hackney coach drew up in front of Christopher. The door opened and Miss Bell leaned out. "Hello, Christopher. Come in."

Christopher climbed in. "Where are my friends?" he demanded.

"They are safe," said Miss Bell. "But it is unlikely you will be able to find them without me before their air runs out. I think that they have enough air to last until 9:00. So I suggest that you tell de Witt's people to let us pass and not to follow us."

He put on his vaguest expression. "I'm here alone," said Christopher.

Miss Bell said calmly, "I know there are a dozen men hiding on each end of the bridge. They've been in position for an hour."

Christopher shrugged. "Drive on. I'll signal them to not stop us."

Miss Bell rapped on the roof and the coach rattled off. Christopher waved his handkerchief out of the left window.

Several turns later, Miss Bell pulled two spells from her purse and tore them open. Christopher sensed that the coach was now invisible and warded from magic tracers.

"I need you to do one thing for me," said Miss Bell. "If you do it, I'll let your friends go."

"What do you want?"

"We are approaching Newgate Prison. I want you to take down the containment spells over the prison."

"Uncle Ralph!" exclaimed Christopher. "He's imprisoned at Newgate. You're trying to help him escape."

For a second there, Miss Bell looked very pretty at the mention of Uncle Ralph. Then, it was gone. She said very colorlessly, "Bring down all the spells over the prison, including the wards and alarms. Then I'll tell you where your friends are and we will go our separate ways."

"But Uncle Ralph will come after me to seek revenge."

"You leave him to me," said Miss Bell. "I'll take him out of the country. I promise you will never see him again."

Christopher hesitated for a few moments. "All right," he said reluctantly.

The coach drew to a stop in front of Newgate Prison and they got out. Miss Bell paid the driver. Once the coach was out of sight, she gestured to the prison. "Go ahead."

Christopher looked at it using witch sight. There were over a dozen layers of spells over the entire building. Spells to keep the prisoners inside were intertwined with spells to keep them docile. Spells to prevent intruders from breaking in were enmeshed with spells to prevent fires. Spells to keep out rodents and fleas were braided into spells that sounded alarms if anyone tried to mess with the spells. And those were just the first layer of spells. To remove the warding spells and alarm spells, he would have to remove all the spells over the building. It would have taken a witch years to take down all the spells. Even enchanters like Uncle Ralph would have taken days to remove all the spells, and someone would have noticed before he was done.

It took Christopher twenty minutes to peel off all thirteen layers of spells. He folded each one neatly and placed them in the cubbyhole in theta-space that Millie had shown him how to create. "Done," he said as dropped the thirteenth layer into his cubbyhole.

Miss Bell took a mirror from her bag. "Ralph. Initiate snow leopard plan."

Uncle Ralph's voice came from the mirror. "I'll be right there."

Ten minutes later, Uncle Ralph slipped out of a side door. His gray prison clothes were a far cry from his usual expensive tweeds, and six months in prison had left Uncle Ralph about fifteen pounds thinner than before, but he was quite jaunty as he walked up to them and clasped Miss Bell on the shoulder. "Simply splendid, my dear. I knew I could count on you."

Miss Bell smiled at Uncle Ralph and looked quite beautiful. Then she pulled out a gun from her purse. It was the most unusual gun Christopher had ever seen. It looked like it was made out of blue glass with gold filigree. Miss Bell pointed it at the prison wall and pulled the trigger.

Crackling blue light shot out of the gun and hit the wall where it quickly spread into an archway. The light died away and Christopher could see a city with huge pylons in the sky through the archway.

Miss Bell put the gun away and said to Christopher, "Your friends are in the wardrobe in your room in your old house. I left the key under the front mat. Better hurry. It's a quarter after seven right now." She took Uncle Ralph's arm and headed towards the archway.

Christopher took a step forward, wondering if he should stop them. Uncle Ralph's eyes met his in a fierce warning to not interfere. Then the two of them stepped across the portal. Gold light flashed and the archway disappeared, leaving only the prison wall behind.

The doors of one of the buildings across the street opened and Millie, Jason, and Gabriel hurried out. "You heard everything?" Christopher asked.

"Yes, indeed," said Gabriel. "Take Millie and Jason with you to find your friends. If you will give me the spells you removed, I'll replace them on the prison before any other convicts escape."

* * *

The key was exactly where Miss Bell said it would be. Christopher unlocked the front doors and bounded up the stairs to the night nursery on the third floor. He stumbled midway up the stairs but Jason caught him before he fell.

"Honestly, Christopher!" said Millie, her witchlight creating odd hollows on her face. "Conjure up your own witchlight before you break your neck again."

"I don't need it," said Christopher loftily. "I know this house like the back of my hand." But he went up the stairs a little more slowly.

All the furniture in the night nursery was covered with dust sheets. Christopher yanked the sheet off the wardrobe and flung open the doors.

There was no one inside.

Christopher gave the wardrobe a savage kick. Something rattled inside the wardrobe and Christopher froze. Jason leaned in and grabbed a small snowglobe from the very back corner of the wardrobe. Jason looked at it for a second and then held it up to them.

"Look!" Jason said. "They're right there! Inside."

Millie and Christopher peered at the snowglobe. Two tiny figures about half an inch high were dodging flakes of snow at the bottom of the snowglobe. The snow was falling far faster than it normally did inside snowglobes. It had been drained of water leaving only air inside.

"Careful!" said Millie. "Don't shake it. Don't even move."

Jason froze. Millie tapped the snowglobe and the glass and snow flakes vanished, leaving Fenning and Oneir standing on the wooden base. Christopher restored them to their normal size.

Of course, since Jason had been holding the wooden base in his hands, a full-sized Fenning and Oneir appeared standing on Jason's gloved hands for a second before gravity took over and all three of them crashed to the floor.

"Ouch!"

"Move your elbow."

"Who just kicked me?"

Christopher and Millie hurried to help them up.

"You had an awful governess, Christopher," said Fenning.

"I never want to see a snowglobe again," said Oneir. "Those "snowflakes" were as big as our heads."

"I'm hungry," said Fenning. "Do you have food?"

* * *

Mordecai bought Miss Bell back shortly before midnight. Sally bought word to them in the dining room, where Christopher, Jason, Millie, Fenning, and Oneir were enjoying a midnight feast, that a portal had opened in the pentagram in the great hall. Oneir and Fenning declined to set eyes on Miss Bell again but the others raced to the great hall.

Miss Bell was bound up in the same type of spells that had been on Mordecai when he was arrested and staring blankly into space. She did not seem to notice what was happening around her. Mordecai, still wearing Uncle Ralph's prison clothes, was hugging Miss Rosalie.

Two policemen took Miss Bell away.

"Good work, Christopher," said Gabriel. "You were quite right in deducing that Effisia Bell would try to use you to free Ralph Argent."

Christopher glowed in satisfaction.

Turning to Mordecai, Gabriel asked, "Did you have any trouble with her?"

"No. She never suspected a thing. This is the portal maker she used." Mordecai took the blue and gold gun from his coat pocket and handed it to Gabriel. "Apparently, they had just imported a few of them from Series One when we caught up to the Wraith. It creates a portal between two worlds without any preparation or spellwork. However, each gun is tuned to only two worlds and they're astronomically expensive. I think they were eventually planning on using them to replace Christopher and me."

They milled around for awhile, exchanging stories on the evening's events.

Flavian had kept watch on the real Uncle Ralph, signaling Mordecai when Miss Bell's voice spoke over Uncle Ralph's shaving mirror. Then, Flavian had placed a sleep spell on Uncle Ralph so that Mordecai could take his place.

Flavian announced to Jason and Christopher, "By the way, after Henrietta and Elizabeth get back tomorrow morning, we can go cross-country skiing. If we set off at noon, we can do twelve or thirteen miles by sunset. It'll be one last fun activity before lessons start again."

Jason and Christopher stared at him in horror. Millie said, "I'm so glad I'm going back to school tomorrow."


End file.
